


Mother of All Solutions

by SophiaHawkins



Category: Mom (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29788848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins
Summary: AU following "Jell-O Shots and the Truth About Santa." Jill learns about Christy's visit with her daughter, and decides to pay Violet a visit.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	Mother of All Solutions

Mother of All Solutions

Jill just about dropped the chair she'd folded after the meeting ended, "Violet said _what_?"

"I know," Bonnie nodded. "I couldn't believe it either."

Jill just stood there for a second and blinked a couple times before she asked, "Well what'd Christy do?"

"She's giving Violet her space. You should've seen her, Jill, I even offered to break into Violet's apartment and destroy the tapes so she couldn't put the podcast up."

"Bonnie... _nobody_ uses tapes anymore," Jill said.

"So it's been brought to my attention," Bonnie rolled her eyes and looked towards the ceiling.

Jill pursed her lips together and her face scrunched up as she thought of something and asked Bonnie, "Did you do it?"

"No, Christy told me not to. She thinks it'll help other people like Violet to cope with having alcoholic mothers."

Jill turned her head the other way and made a similar look as she thought of something else and asked Bonnie, "You offered to do something to _help_ Christy out? On your own?"

"You had to be there," Bonnie told her, "It was _bad_."

"And Christy said no?" Jill couldn't seem to grasp it.

"Yeah, she's taking the high road, she's a bigger person than I am."

"Somehow I doubt that," Jill said half under her breath. "And what did _you_ say to Violet?"

"Nothing," Bonnie shook her head, "This is something _they_ have to work out."

"Oh please, since when do you keep your nose out of other people's business?" Jill asked.

"Since I wasn't the one always getting loaded and abandoning Violet," Bonnie answered.

"Uh huh..." Jill slowly nodded, "but you got loaded and abandoned Christy."

"I never abandoned her, I worked...across the border," Bonnie said.

"Bonnie, where exactly were you when Violet was growing up?" Jill asked.

"I was there...in between jail...prison...smuggling into Mexico," she answered.

"Were _you_ high around Violet?" Bonnie asked.

Bonnie sucked in a breath and answered, "Sometimes...but, she didn't know, I was way less impaired than Christy was."

"So that's why she calls you the life preserver, because she doesn't understand what a huge mess of a mom you were to Christy," Jill said.

"Of course she knows, Christy told her all the time," Bonnie replied.

"But Violet never saw it for herself, so she doesn't believe it."

Bonnie got quiet for a minute and said, "Guess you could have a point there..."

"So...what's all this Violet said about raising herself? You were there, you helped keep things in order," Jill said.

"Off and on, here and there, most of the time the poor kid was fending for herself," Bonnie said.

"Correct me if I'm wrong...but wasn't Baxter there?" Jill asked.

"Have you _met_ Baxter?" Bonnie asked. "Besides, he wasn't in the picture until she was about eight, that's a lot of years of damage before there were _two_ irresponsible adults in the house."

Jill raised one eyebrow curiously, pursed her glossed lips together, and said, "Let me see if I got this straight...your mama abandoned you, you were bounced around in foster homes where you were beaten, you had Christy, who never knew her dad, who grew up without anything, who got with a guy who beat the hell out of her all the time, where she got pregnant with Violet, who had you, Christy and Baxter in the picture to all help raise her, and she's the one bitching about damage being done to _her_ as a child."

"It's not that simple," Bonnie said.

"Yeah yeah yeah, what is?" Jill sniped. "What's the little ingrate's address? I want to meet her."

"Whoa, hold on," Bonnie said, "this doesn't concern you."

"I said my peace to Christy, I told her to talk to Violet face to face, now I'm going to say my peace to Violet, if she doesn't talk to me again, it doesn't matter, I'm not family, but I'm damn well gonna tell her where to get off," Jill said.

Bonnie took a step back and her eyes widened in surprise and amaze, "Look at you getting all assertive, where'd that come from?"

"My pool boy's out sick for the week and I got nobody to order around, now _let's go old lady_ ," Jill barked at her. Bonnie took another step back as Jill walked past her, in two steps she turned her head towards Bonnie and said in her regular voice, "I'm sorry, that one surprised even me."

"I think I'll drive," Bonnie commented as they left the room, "I don't feel like dying today, Sybil."

* * *

"This is where Violet lives?" Jill asked as they walked through the hall to her apartment.

"Yep, it's classier than anyplace I was living at her age," Bonnie said.

Jill stopped and looked at her, "That is so sad."

"It's not too late to turn around," Bonnie said, "Violet is Christy's daughter, this _will_ get ugly."

"I'm just going to say my peace and let Violet do with it what she will," Jill insisted.

Bonnie looked uncertain and replied hesitantly, "Okaaay." She knocked on the door, and stood back.

The door opened and Violet looked surprised, "Grandma? What're you doing here?"

"Hey kiddo...I was just...spur of the moment thing really," Bonnie said, and gestured to Jill, "This is-"

"Jill Kendall, I'm a big fan," Jill stepped forward and put her hand out to shake, "I've heard all your podcasts, I love you, you're just an amazing little lady."

This caught Violet off guard but she smiled sheepishly as she shook her hand, "Thanks...it's nice to meet you..."

"Ooh, I love your hair," Jill said as she touched it, "You look like that Bones lady when she was on TV."

Violet made a half grimacing face and replied, "Uh...thanks."

"Is this a bad time?" Bonnie asked.

"No," Violet stepped back and held the door, "Come on in."

They did, as Violet closed the door she asked, "So, how exactly do you two know each other?"

"We met at an AA meeting," Jill said.

"Oh," Violet sounded a little less enthused, "So you're one of my mom's friends?"

"That depends on the day really," Jill answered. "Actually, your mama is my sponsor. I have to ask you, just what is a do-do-do?"

"Something lame my mom does when she doesn't know what to say and wants me to move the conversation along for her," Violet answered bluntly.

"Oh," Jill nodded and said in an amused tone, "So that's why she wouldn't ever tell me."

Violet looked to Bonnie and said, "So, what's the real reason you're here? My mom sent you, didn't she?"

"No, she didn't," Bonnie answered, "She's doing what you asked and staying out of your life."

"Violet honey," Jill turned to her, "This was actually my idea to come here..."

"Why?"

"Well because I can definitely relate to your frustration, and I'm a daughter too, and..." Jill's friendly demeanor suddenly disappeared and she got a hard glint in her eye as she told the younger woman sternly, "You are a selfish little brat."

"Excuse me?" Violet raised one eyebrow.

"I know you got plenty of issues with your mama, Lord knows we _all_ have our own issues with Christy," Jill told her, "but it really isn't fair to her to blame her for everything that was wrong when you were growing up."

"Why not? She's the one that did everything."

"Right," Jill said, "so you blame her for drinking and using drugs and never being there for you, right?"

"Pretty much."

Jill turned and gestured towards Bonnie and said, "So do you blame your grandma for doing the same thing when your mom was growing up?"

"No," Violet answered.

"Why not?" Jill asked. "Your mama turned out the way she did because of how she was raised by _this_ woman you love so much. Bonnie turned out the way she did because of how she was raised. So if you're going to blame Christy for what she did, why not blame Bonnie for what she did first?"

"Because that has nothing to do with me," Violet responded.

"Ohhhh," Jill said slowly as she nodded exaggeratedly, "I see...so do you tell your listeners that what their parents did is fine since they didn't do it to you?"

"Of course not, I do my podcast to _help_ them cope with having parents like my mom," Violet said.

"Because what she did was just so horrible and unforgivable," Jill said.

"That's right," Violet nodded.

"As much as I love smelling like a rose when the crap hits the fan," Bonnie interjected, "Violet, you have to realize your mom really did the best that she knew how."

"So she should get an award for being a drunk stripper who never picked me up and was always passed out on the couch?" Violet asked.

"Did she abandon you?" Jill asked. "I don't mean gone on a bender for a day, or the weekend. Did she give you away to anybody?"

"No. What's that got to do with anything?" Violet asked.

"Did she ever hit you?" Jill asked.

"No," Violet replied defensively, "but emotional abuse is just as ba-"

"Did she ever bring creepy men home and let them touch you?" Jill asked.

"No."

"Did your stepdad Baxter ever touch you?" Jill asked.

"Of course not, he wouldn't do that," Violet answered.

"Because he was actually a pretty decent guy?" Jill asked her.

"Yeah, he was the only reliable parent in the house."

"So...when you tell your listeners that you raised yourself and had to do everything yourself, that wasn't entirely true, was it?" Jill asked.

"Baxter was _there_ , but I still had to cook and clean-"

"Which most kids learn how to do, it's called chores," Jill said, then leaned over towards Bonnie and said in a whisper, "That's right, isn't it?"

Bonnie nodded.

"And," Jill added to Violet, "those are things you do for yourself now living on your own, right?"

"Yeah," Violet replied in a 'not getting it' tone.

"And you said you were the one paying the bills?" Jill asked.

"Yeah, if it wasn't for me-"

"Paying them, with the money your mama made working as a stripper every night," Jill pointed out. "When you cooked the meals, that was with the food she bought with the money she made from stripping. So to recap, she kept a roof over your head, food on the table, and money to pay the bills, what a monster."

"We didn't always have money, she had to shoplift my school clothes out of a store, and a backpack," Violet said.

"So she was willing to risk going to jail to get _you_ things that _you_ needed," Jill said. She turned to Bonnie and asked her, "Bonnie, how exactly does this compare to when you were raising Christy?"

Bonnie shuffled her feet uncomfortably and after stalling for a few seconds, answered in a less than proud voice, "There were times the only roof over our head was a panel truck, and the only food on the table was a box of Red Vines. For two years, the only reason we weren't homeless was because this woman let us live with her...and...I did gay...ish stuff with her."

Jill ignored the look of disgust on Violet's face at that revelation and asked Bonnie, "And how does it compare to how _you_ were raised?"

"I _wasn't_ raised," Bonnie answered defensively, "My mother took me to a fire house when I was 4 years old and walked out of my life, she told me she'd be back when she had enough money, and instead she married a man who didn't want kids and just forgot about me, and later she had my brother Ray, and kept him instead, while I was bounced around to a dozen different foster homes where more times than not the people there would beat me for the hell of it, the only way I survived was stealing from them, which always got me kicked out and sent to another foster home. After the last one threw me out I wound up on a chicken farm in Bakersfield, _that_ was truly hell."

Jill turned back to Violet and asked, "So let's try this again, Violet honey, who do you think got the better end of the deal here? Your grandma was abandoned, never knew either of her parents, she had your mom, who never knew her dad and got with your dad who beat the crap out of her. Your mama kept you, you had a good father figure in your life, you had _three_ adults who shared the responsibility of raising you and making sure you were okay, your mama stripped to keep the money coming in, Baxter helped raise you and your brother Roscoe when she wasn't around, and you had Bonnie, your quote 'life preserver'. So I'm sorry, but I don't see where you come off saying you raised yourself and were always on your own."

"Oh please, my life growing up left me more traumatized than I ever knew, it totally screwed me up," Violet replied.

"And it shoooows," Jill said sarcastically, "you're a smart independent young lady making her own way in the world, reaching out to thousands of lost souls who need the sympathetic ear of somebody who's been in their shoes. You got pregnant, you decided to give the baby up for adoption and break the cycle of dysfunction, found a wonderful family to raise her so she'll have _two_ loving parents who give her the whole world...and you made the choice _not_ to drink and use drugs like your mom, your grandma and _her_ mom all did...now how do you suppose all that happened if the environment you grew up in was so horrible? Because it sounds to me like Christy must've done _something_ right for you to be able to figure all that out on your own."

"Well it doesn't matter what you think," Violet said, "this isn't about you."

"Oh no?" Jill replied, "I thought the idea of your podcast was to help people with alcoholic parents...now is that just your generation or does it apply to people of all ages going through the same thing? Or as far as you're concerned, are people 30 and up just supposed to shake it all off?"

"Why do you even care?" Violet asked.

"Because I meant what I said," Jill said as she adjusted the purse on her shoulder, "I have listened to all your podcasts, and I am a big fan...and you _are_ a selfish little brat. You don't know how lucky you are, sure your mama screwed up, just like your grandma did, who you give a free pass to, just like millions of mothers in the world do, but you know what? Yours is still here to talk to about it. My mama killed herself when I was 16 and I needed her the most..." she cleared her throat and added, "I spent a lot of time in therapy because of it, and then my therapist married my dad and became my step-mom, and I had to go all through therapy again with a new therapist just to tell her about what my last therapist did to stab me in the back."

There was a brief silence in the room before Jill continued, and told Violet, "I know what it's like to be a failure. My family always had money so I never had to do anything, never had to know _how_ to do anything...I act like it doesn't bother me that I hire a bunch of people to do everything for me, but I look around at everybody else who knows how to cook their own meals, do their own laundry, mow their own lawn, change their own motor oil...and I feel _stupid_ that I never learned how to do any of that, and you...you were doing that before you were in junior high. It may not be ideal but you should be grateful that you learned how to be self sufficient. I've never had a job, there's nothing I'm qualified to do, _that_ makes you feel like the biggest failure as a human being. That was one of the reasons why I was always drinking and drugging, so I didn't have to focus on why my life felt so empty, try to figure out what was missing. I tried to fill it with men, a husband, kids, and when that failed I tried to fill it with alcohol and drugs and shopping and food and...everything else you could possibly be addicted to. And after a while I realized it all goes back to losing my mama, and having her taken from my life is what put that big hole in me. And if she'd lived I have no doubt we would still have our problems 20 years later..."

"30," Bonnie offered under her breath.

Jill turned her head towards Bonnie just enough to reply under her breath, "I'm making a point here," and turned back to Violet and told her, "but every year on the anniversary of her death, I got to find the strength to pry myself out of my bed because I still miss her so much, and there were so many things I never got a chance to tell her, and I hate it. I'd give up everything I ever had that I ever thought meant anything if it would bring her back. You have no idea how lucky you are that you still have your mom and she wants to repair y'alls relationship."

Violet suddenly got quiet and took a small step back.

"You know, a few years back, we met this nice young girl named Jodi at a meeting, and she wasn't much older than you," Jill told her, "And Christy became her sponsor and helped her get sober...6 months later we were at a wedding waiting for Jodi to come, and she never did, and your mom got a phone call from her number...it was the police telling us she'd overdosed in her bathroom and died. We thought she'd just gotten hung up somewhere and couldn't get to the wedding on time. She wasn't even 21 and her whole life was just _gone_. And that about destroyed all of us, but especially your mom, because she was Jodi's sponsor, and she blamed herself for not being able to save her. So...the next time you ignore your mom's phone call, you remember that, for all you know it could be the state police calling to tell you she was killed in a collision on the interstate." Jill shook her head as she continued, "None of us knows how much time we got left, we just take for granted we'll always have plenty of time to apologize later...and we don't. So you think about it, if tomorrow your mom dies, can you live with the last thing you said to her?"

Violet didn't say anything for a minute, then turned to Bonnie and said to her, "I thought you were on my side."

"Violet, sobriety isn't about taking sides," she replied, "I'm still making amends to people I wronged 40 years ago. Nobody's in the right on this, I screwed up, your mom screwed up, everybody plays their own part in something like this."

"What did I ever do? I was born?" Violet sniped.

"You and I both know your mom got a raw deal from you in the later years _when_ she started turning her life around and trying to do better by you and Roscoe, trust me, your attitude alone could've driven her back to drinking plenty of times, but she was stronger than that," Bonnie said. "I relapsed, Jill relapsed, between us we threw 5 years of sobriety out the window and it _sucks_ having to start over from day one all over again."

Jill bit her bottom lip for a few seconds and self consciously added, "I relapsed several times...I got about 30 first time chips, most of them after being sober for 3 years, Christy was with me every step of the way as I struggled to make it to getting that first month chip again, then two months...three, four, five, six...it's a hard way back, you just feel like the biggest failure who ever lived."

"I can second that motion," Bonnie added quietly.

"Then you look around a meeting, and there are people there who were sober 50 years and then suddenly just started drinking again, and you know y'all are in the same boat," Jill said, "but you still feel like your own relapse is worse than anybody else's."

"We know what it's like, Violet," Bonnie told her, "your mom's never done that, she's been the one there for us when we fell, that is who _you_ get your strength from, you need to remember that, and show a little gratitude too."

Jill took the center stage for one final comment and told Violet, "Look, Violet, all your frustrations at what your mama did, that is all perfectly clear, and most people can understand it, and relate to it. And me? I'm just another alcoholic who came from a broken family and a failed marriage, you don't know me from Eve, so when I leave here today, nothing I've said really matters, you can do with it whatever you like, because this ain't about me...this is about you, and you need to think long and hard about what it really is you want out of your relationship with Christy, and you need to figure it out while there's still time for both of you." She cleared her throat and said, "Anyway, that's my side." She turned her head and commanded, "Come, Bonnie," and headed for the door. Just before she exited, she turned back to Violet and said, "I really do like your hair, just a tip, don't ever fall asleep smoking, I know." And with that, she was out the door.

Bonnie stayed back for a minute and told Violet, "I'd like to say all the years of drinking made her that way but I think that's just her true southern form."

Violet was half staring at the floor, she looked at Bonnie through the corner of one eye and asked, "So do _you_ think I should let my mom back in my life?"

"That's not my call to make," Bonnie said, "but she's my daughter, and I know how much it hurt when she didn't want me in her life, and you have no idea how glad I am that we're no longer at that point in our relationship." She sighed and added, "I gotta get going before Jill starts turning over cars down there..." she hugged Violet and told her, "Take care of yourself, kiddo, I'll see you around."

"I can still call _you_ , right?" Violet asked.

"Oh yeah, always," Bonnie said, "That's why I'm Life Preserver."

* * *

After the door closed behind Bonnie, she murmured to Jill, "I'm not sure about Life Preserver, I'm starting to feel more like an air bag."

"What do you mean?" Jill asked as they headed for the elevator.

"Oh I'll save your life, but to do it, I have to knock the crap out of you and you'll wish you _were_ dead," Bonnie explained.

"Well, thank you for letting me say my peace in there," Jill said.

"I still can't believe you did that," Bonnie said in amaze, "I didn't know you had it in you."

"Well...neither did I..." Jill confessed.

"What?" Bonnie did a double take.

Jill shrugged, "I mean it's funny to hear what Christy did back in the day before she got sober...but Violet is so lucky Christy still wants to be a part of her life...all my money, my cars, my houses, all my designer clothes and purses and jewelry, I would trade it all in a heartbeat if I could just have five more minutes with my mama, tell her I love her..." her eyes started to well up and her bottom lip trembled as she added in a voice breaking with tears, "Get to hug her..." a wrenching sob doubled her over as she squeezed her eyes shut and clamped a hand over her mouth.

Bonnie put her arm around Jill and hugged her, saying nothing, just being there for her. After a minute, Jill composed herself and sniffed as she brushed away the tears trailing down her cheek, and quietly said, "Let's go."


End file.
